motivéevsmotivésWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“motivée” and “motivés” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#12,819
“motivée” frequency rank
#13,842
“motivés” frequency rank
26661
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature motivée motivés
Definition Féminin singulier de motivé. Masculin pluriel de motivé.

Same sound, different letters: motivée vs motivés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. motivée (CVCVCVV) and motivés (CVCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
motivée
7 ch
motivés

Ear matches; page differs - motivée and motivés

This is the hard kind. motivée and motivés are pronounced identically (\mɔ.ti.ve\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by a single letter - e in “motivée” becomes s in “motivés”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26661, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

motivée is recorded at frequency rank #12,819, classified as anadj, pronounced \mɔ.ti.ve\. motivés is at rank #13,842, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mɔ.ti.ve\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 26661, this pair ranks #333,596 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of motivée vs motivés

Shared letters: imotvé. Private to "motivée": e. Private to "motivés": s.

"motivée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "motivés" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "motivée" and "motivés" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\mɔ.ti.ve\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "motivée" vs "motivés" - which ranks higher?
"motivée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,819 in our French list, against #13,842 for "motivés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

"motivée" and "motivés" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "motivée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "motivés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #333,596 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "motivée" and "motivés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "motivés vs mottes". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #333,596 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list